Is Gilead Already Coming Back Into Favor?

Is it possible that Gilead is already coming back into favor after just a week of being in the doghouse?

Gilead was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $104 price target at Morgan Stanley in a research call on Monday. The brokerage firm said that it sees the fear over AbbVie pricing as an opportunity and that the market’s misinterpretation of the pricing risk is actually an attractive entry point. Gilead was also named among the Top 10 Picks for 2015 by Barron’s this weekend. Barron’s says shares of Gilead could soar 25% in a year.

According to Barron’s, investors are abandoning the stock rather than face the unknown, and at this point bargain hunters should take the other side of that trade. This is surmised from the recent 14% drop that the stock experienced in the previous week, which puts the stock at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of roughly nine times future earnings. Barron’s also noted that, over the next four years, Gilead is expected to generate free cash flow totaling $50 billion.

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It is also worth noting that the Viekira Pak — AbbVie’s hepatitis-C treatment — is more expensive as well as considered to be inferior than Harvonim Gilead’s treatment, according to Barron’s. This would suggest that Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX) got a deep discount when it agreed to exclusively provide AbbVie’s treatment.

Previously, 24/7 Wall St. was cautious regarding the low P/E ratio, despite it appearing attractive or at least seriously cheap. Also other analysts such as Merrill Lynch are not as optimistic as Morgan Stanley, seeing this as a value trap. Merrill Lynch downgraded Gilead to an Underperform rating from Buy and lowered its price target to $87 from $130.

Merrill Lynch considers that a price war could be started from this deal, which overall would not bode well for the hepatitis C market. It might also force future competitors to further cut pricing in an effort to acquire more market share. The analyst firm went on to say that the pricing war initiated by AbbVie is unprecedented and could have a ripple effect across multiple branded biopharm companies.

In regards to the potential price war that could come from this deal, The Motley Fool suggests that this might only be a short-term price war. Ultimately Gilead would come out on top with its pipeline ripe with other therapies that have the potential to be game changers. This coupled with its $6.2 billion in cash on its balance sheet would buffer against any short-term issues. Also Gilead is in the process of making another generation of hepatitis C drugs that will further combat the disease and secure the company’s future.

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Gilead was up 3.3% at $96.96 in Monday morning trading. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $122.00 and a 52-week trading range of $63.50 to $116.83.